


certainty, fidelity

by pipistrelle



Series: with your crooked heart [1]
Category: Avenger - Fandom, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, I Don't Even Know, Poetry, i apologize to the world, i wrote a thing, when you throw fluff and angst into a blender what do you get
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipistrelle/pseuds/pipistrelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fury has kept Hawkeye and the Black Widow apart for nearly eight weeks, so of course their on first mission together again everything goes to hell. Vaugely inspired by W.H. Auden's "Lullabye". Shameless fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	certainty, fidelity

_But in my arms till break of day_  
                                                                                            _Let the living creature lie,_  
 _Mortal, guilty, but to me_  
 _the entirely beautiful._

 _\--_ W.H. Auden _  
_

* * *

 _  
  
_"Tasha," Clint calls, one hand on the side of her face, his thumb stroking her cheek, smearing blood and ash across her pale skin. "Tasha, come on, wake up. Please." He's begging _,_ he doesn't care, his voice is hoarse from smoke and anguish but finally, this time, her eyes open. He's laid her on her back on the hillside and against the moonlit grass her green eyes look almost black.  
  
Clint wants to weep but all that comes out of his mouth is a sigh of relief. "Thank _fuck_ ," he breathes. "I thought for sure you were gonna run out on me. It's okay, we're safe, for a while anyway. Don't try to move. I'm pretty sure you've got about a gallon of tranquilizer in your system, and I had to drag you through a broken window to get you out, so you've lost some blood. Transport's coming. "  
  
Of course she tries to move, she tries to push up on her elbows and cries out in pain as her burned arms touch the ground. Clint knows much less about burns than about bullet wounds, but he doesn't think these look lethal, though they must hurt like hell. Natasha doesn't make another sound, though, just folds her arms carefully over her chest and stares up, through the thin canopy of willow branches. Her eyes are distant, as though she's reading something fascinating a million miles away. Blood seeps into the dirt.  
  
The dull concussion of a distant explosion makes the leaves rustle overhead. Clint rocks back on his heels and glances over his shoulder at the dull orange blaze that lights up one whole horizon like a cheap knock-off of the sunset that sank to true night hours ago.  
  
 _Fuck_. Their first mission together in nearly eight weeks, and of course it ends in screaming chaos, with half the compound burned down and panicked civilians making any kind of perimeter impossible. Fury's going to kill him. The target is dead along with a dozen of his cronies, Clint saw that much when he pulled Natasha out of the burning ballroom, but it's too late and too much. Too much collateral damage.

He groans and scrubs at his tired eyes with one hand. He should have been watching, he _was_ watching, but even the Hawk hadn't seen those mercs, those machine guns, that bomb. Nearly eight weeks of coddling politicians, mopping up after rookies, doing all of Fury's bullshit errands then when he finally gets back into the important stuff, with lives hanging on the speed of his draw and Natasha depending on him, he fucks it up. And now she'll be grounded for at least a week, probably longer, and Fury will send him to do penance in Kuwait or some shit, on the other side of the world from his partner, not because it'll actually make him repent at this point but just because it'll be fun to see him suffer.

And he will suffer. He's been suffering for eight goddamn weeks and now he knows in exacting detail how he'll ache for her every minute, how the cold of her absence on the long nights will sear him to the bone and the lack of her shadow will make the days garish and empty. It's not like Clint can't function with a hollowed-out heart because he can, he's a past master at it, but up until the day he'd tried to kill her he hadn't realized there was any other way to live, and now he does. Now he does, and it's going to be taken away. _Again._ If she doesn't die of blood loss first.  
  
A chill breeze blows the scent of burning from the compound and raises a sussurus of leaves. There's another sound as well, one that Clint feels more than hears, and when he looks up he sees that Natasha's shivering, though the night is warm. Her breathing has changed, it's faster and less easy now. _Shock_ , Clint thinks dully, _shock or drugs_ , and he moves closer, crouching over her with his arms tense on his thighs, like respiratory arrest is something he'll be able to protect her from by shooting it.

But she doesn't crash, doesn't go into shock, just shifts her thousand-mile gaze in his direction and says his name, reaching for him. He twines his fingers with hers, careful not to brush her burns, and follows the pull as she draws his hand back towards her, reeling him in. Her skin is clammy and cool and that terrifies him. Without a word he slides his quiver off his shoulder, lays his bow down in easy reach and lowers himself onto the grass beside her. She curls into him at once, drawn to the heat of his skin, and as she rests her head on his arm her hair spreads out like a bloodstain over the grass. There is non-figurative blood welling between them too, from the cuts they both sustained going through the window. Her hand comes to rest on his stomach and her fingers trace a smear of red on his costume like a target.  
  
Clint can hear the roar of his own heart in his ears, crashing like ocean surf, and for a second he imagines they're a normal pair of lovers, lying on a beach in the cool spring night, with world enough and time and only each other to define and separate the vast perilous emptiness of the night sky and the sea. The vision strikes him like a bell, shakes him and the vibrations make him feel for a moment like he is no longer still and cold and hollow, like he can promise more certainty than chaos, more fidelity than fear. Like he can promise that they will be okay tomorrow.

Screams pierce the silence, and the vision dissolves. Now that he's not moving the various persistent pains that have been trying to get his attention for the last twenty minutes finally grow too heavy to ignore, and he groans. Natasha hums tunelessly, a small reassuring noise, and rests her head on his chest. He can feel the movement of her breathing even as she rises and falls with his. The simple, repetitive motion calms him, and the fear rising like bile in the back of his throat subsides. "I missed you," he says. "Don't die."  
  
He feels her lips touch the side of his neck, and that's her saying _I missed you, too_ , because she'll never say it. What she says is "Won't," and the relief he feels is immense, because Natasha doesn't make vain promises, and she wouldn't lie to him unless she had a really, really good reason.  
  
Clint lets out a long breath and draws up the raveling threads of his attention, letting distractions fall away to allow the one thing that matters fill up the front of his head, and what matters is this, is now, is Natasha in his arms, burned and broken but still so beautiful that it blinds him. Maybe that's his trouble -- that having been apart for so long he's lost the knack of seeing anything but her.  
  
He wonders distantly if he'll be able to explain that to Fury in the morning, but Fury is part of the periphery too, part of the irrelevant, the non-target. Fury's ire and Medical and hellholes in Kuwait and collateral damage, all of that will be exacted from him, will make their inexorable demands and take what is to be taken, but nothing will be able to take this from him. This, the weight and curve of her body against his, the grounding assurance of her heartbeat, all this will go towards his debts -- but not the debt he owes to Fury. This is the black in his ledger. The Black Widow is in his ledger, she's balanced it with stolen coffee and poisoned knives and inscrutable glances, and maybe one day he'll fuck up a mission so badly that he'll lose her forever, but today is not that day.  
  
Her breathing is better now and she's stopped shivering -- not shock, then, just drugs. Half a second after his rush of giddy relief, Clint realizes how strange it is that he should be relieved to find out his partner's been dosed with enough sedatives to kill a man twice her size.  
  
Oh well. He'll take what comfort he can.  
  
Bells toll in the distance, alarm or all-clear, and when it dies away Clint is almost sure he can hear the chopper coming in, the low thwacking of the rotor blades eating up time and distance, coming in to ferry them into the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely inspired by the W.H. Auden poem "Lullaby", as referenced in the quote. The poem belongs to Auden's estate and I make no money etc etc.


End file.
